T Dog’s Six (Nine) Pack: Upfronts edition

It’s an special edition of T Dog’s Six Pack – a supersized one with nine items related to last week’s upfronts in New York as advertisers, media buyers, and the networks  now have the hardest job ahead of them – negotiations. Here are the hits and misses from last week’s presentations: Epic successes:The return of the sitcom. Just when you’ve […]

T Dog’s Six Pack: Needing some extra “support”

Ah, lucky Providence, R.I. They get to see women in bras in the prime access hour. We Chicagoans get Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson. You know, it’s hard to be a bra salesman these days in Providence when you have the Internet… and now you have infomercials running as early as 7 p.m.! Is it no surprise that 25% of […]

Meredith takes over Atlanta’s Peachtree TV

Des Moines, Ia. –based Meredith Corp., owner of CBS affiliate WGCL-TV in Atlanta, has agreed to take over day-today operations of Turner Broadcasting’s WPCH-TV (aka Peachtree TV) in a local marketing agreement giving Meredith control of the station’s marketing, promotions, advertising, and technical operations while Turner stays on as owner and licensee. The deal takes effect in the next few […]

Conan begins life on basic cable

Conan’s excited to be on TBS. Monday finally marked former NBC late-night host Conan O’Brien venture into basic cable on a network which was once stood as a momument to Ted Turner. Conan’s conquest of the Turner Broadcasting System started in essence with an overnight rating of 2.8 for his Monday premiere. But it gets better: – The program drew […]

T Dog’s Grab Bag: Exit, stage left…

..and other media news of note: – Kevin Manno is exiting his afternoon gig at alt-rock WKQX-FM (Q101) to take a job hosting a yet-to-be named weekday show on MTV according to CRM. The new show debuts on September 20 and is scheduled to air weekdays at 5 p.m. Manno’s old shift is being filled temporarily by James VanOdsol. This […]

T Dog’s Six Pack: The Emmys, "Hot In Cleveland", LeBron, and more

Three up, three down: The best and worst in media during the past week: What’s Hot. The Final Answer: Pay up, Mickey Mouse. A grand jury ruled in favor of Celador after The Walt Disney Co. skimmed the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire producer out of millions of dollars, thanks to “Hollywood Accounting.”  The jury awarded Celador $269 million, […]

T Dog’s Six Pack

Yes, T Dog’s Four Pack is back! But due to the struggling economy (ha, ha), yours truly is forced to cut one each from the winners’ pack and the losers’ pack – and merge the rest together to form T Dog’s Six Pack – three winners and three losers each in the same post – plus, Six Pack is a […]

A high-five for "Big Bang Theory"

Off-net sitcom clears five more markets. Weigel’s WDJT/WMLW in Milwaukee gets syndie rights to show. Warner Bros. red-hot Big Bang Theory has now cleared five more markets a month after the show cleared ten Fox-owned and operated stations, including WFLD-TV and WPWR-TV in Chicago. Among the five markets cleared is Milwaukee, whose CBS-affiliated WDJT-TV purchased the show to air on […]

Turner announces 2010-11 sked

It’s the 2010-11 Turner upfront presentation, and you know who is the man of the hour. I’m talking about Conan O’Brien, TBS’ new late night star, who stopped yesterday at the event to say hi to media buyers (and to convince him he’s the real deal in a daypart dominated by David Letterman and Jay Leno.) O’Brien woke the quasi-sleepy […]

"Big Bang Theory" sold to Fox O&Os and TBS

WFLD/WPWR picks up show as part of ten-market Fox deal    Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution has sold The Big Bang Theory to Fox-owned stations and Turner Broadcasting for a fall 2011 start. The cable deal has TBS paying a record-breaking $1.5 million per episode (for a cable network) for the rights to air the show in primetime four or […]

CBS and Turner grab NCAA Tournament

CBS and Turner Broadcasting announced a mega-deal that will keep at least some of the NCAA Tournament on the Tiffany network – but much of it is moving to cable. In an eye-popping 14-year, $10.8 billion deal struck on Wednesday, CBS and Turner’s family of networks – TNT, TBS, and TruTV (formerly CourtTV) will carry both the preliminary and second […]

T Dog’s Four Pack: The "C" in CBS stands for crime

The winners and losers of the week: The stamp of approval: The Chicago Blackhawks (before Friday’s night’s loss): The Mighty Blackhawks are mighty once again thanks to record-breaking regular season ratings. The Hawks are in the playoffs against the Nashville Predators, which continue Sunday night. Go Hawks! Conan moving to TBS. Fox getting out-foxed by Conan. While Murdoch and the […]

Analysis: The real winners and losers in the CoCo lottery

The drawing in the Conan O’Brien lottery took place Monday, and it was Turner Broadcasting who turned up the lucky winner. So what does TBS actually win? Young demos. A proven name. An increased profile. And a new car – advertiser or two. But it seems a lot of players in this saga appear to winners – TBS, Conan O’Brien, […]

The Grab Bag: "Sex" has a new home, Hawks news, and more

– It appears CoCo has caused a casualty on TBS’ schedule, and its Comcastic! E! and the Style network have acquired all 94 (yes, count ’em – 94) episodes of Sex And the City, beginning in the fall of 2011. Both E! and Style are both owned by Comcast. The former HBO series currently runs on TBS at midnight, but […]

CoCo heads to TBS

It’s something Ted Turner would be proud of – if he still owned TBS. In a move that shocks a lot of people in the industry, former NBC late-night talk show Conan O’Brien has signed a deal with TBS to do a late night program. O’Brien broke the news on Twitter earlier today. Details were sketchy, but O’Brien will begin […]